Senior AIADMK leader V Karuppasamy Pandian quit from a party post on Wednesday, protesting the appointment of TTV Dinakaran as Deputy General Secretary by its chief V K Sasikala. Pandian, the party’s southern region strongman who had returned to AIADMK last year after a stint in DMK, announced his resignation as the party’s Organisation Secretary, questioning if AIADMK was Sasikala’s “family property”.

Speaking to reporters in Tirunelveli, he asked who gave Sasikala the authority to reinduct people expelled by the late Jayalalithaa and whether the party general council or the executive had authorised her in this regard. “Who gave her the authority to reinduct people expelled by Amma. AIADMK was founded by MGR for the welfare of the poor. Is it her (Sasikala) family property,” he asked.

The Supreme Court had on Tuesday restored a lower court order convicting Sasikala and three others in the disproportionate assets case. A day after her conviction in the case, Sasikala today announced that Dinakaran, her nephew and a former Rajya Sabha MP, was being appointed the party’s deputy general secretary. Dinakaran was expelled along with Sasikala and some of her relatives from AIADMK by Jayalalithaa in 2011. Jayalalithaa later withdrew the “disciplinary action” against her close aide, after Sasikala expressed regret.